


For Me

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, M/M, No fluff whatsoever, Pre-Slash, So much angst, also inaccurate ptsd i guess, im sorry in advance for just about everything in this fic, post-TFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 08:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6847489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe was sitting at the side of Finn's hospital bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You Can't Hear Me...

**Author's Note:**

> short but not sweet  
> enjoy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn is recovering, but he isn't there.

Poe Dameron looked at the motionless ex-stormtrooper below him and fought back tears. Too many times had he been in this situation, staring at nearly lifeless bodies, just waiting for them to stop functioning altogether. Too many times had he seen his pilots, his comrades, his _friends_ , get hit once by a gun and lose control and burn up against the ground or a wall and exist no more.

Too many times had he seen people die.

It had gotten to the point where deaths became a number, a number that just had to be less than the number of deaths on the other side. Poe didn't have the time to think about who they were or what they left behind. It wasn’t that he didn't care; he cared about them with all of his heart and soul, but he just _couldn’t_.

But seeing Finn in the same situation was terrifyingly eye-opening. Finn, however much Poe hated to say it or even _think_ of it, had been trained his entire life to be stoic and unyielding to everything except orders from his general. It hurt, to say the least.

So to see him so vulnerable, and so achingly close yet so painfully distant… it was almost more than he could handle. Almost.

Poe refocused his eyes on Finn. What was that so-called “name” _they_ had given him? It could barely be called a name; it was a serial number, an identification that had no meaning. Poe hated it. He couldn’t believe that an actual human being could just be trained to think that they were nothing more than a pawn.

He looked at Finn’s inanimate face. If he was being honest, he just wanted to see his big smile again. He wanted to see the warm, comforting, familiar fire in his eyes again, and to hear his excited yelps and enrapturing laugh and see him being _human_ , because Poe knew that he would never get those twenty-something years of nothing but conditioning back.

Poe would say he wanted to see Finn again, but he’s right there in front of him. And that’s what was overwhelmingly breaking. He was right there, and yet, he might as well have been across the galaxy. He might as well have been back on Jakku, swallowed by the sinking sands Poe had heard about.

He had to look away. _Keep it together, Poe, you can do this,_ the voice in his head told him. It sounded an awful lot like Finn.

“Finn,” he heard himself begin suddenly, his voice cracking from the painful lump in his throat, “I-I know you can’t hear this, but… we miss you. I miss you, buddy. And it’s weird, ‘cause… y’know, I’ve seen so many deaths before, get nightmares sometimes,” he sniffs and feels warm water fall onto his hand, “but… seeing you, going from what I used to think were heartless stormtroopers to the man with the biggest heart I know, and staying strong despite everything, was incredible. And we- I- we need you back, Finn. It’s like you’re the heart of this whole thing, and we’re just- no, I’m just kinda drifting without you, and I need you. I hate that you can’t hear this, I just need you here, Finn,” and now he was crying, actually crying, “here with me.”

He put his head in his hands and sighed, trying desperately to blink back the tears that didn't seem to want to stay put.

  
“I can’t lose you too, Finn. Please, Finn, please… for me,” he choked out.


	2. ...Can You?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn's recovering, but still not there.

A few weeks passed. Finn still hadn’t woken up, but he was recovering. It wasn’t what Poe had hoped for, but it was something. And honestly, at this point, he would have taken anything.

For now, it seemed that the First Order was all but gone, which meant long days of waiting for something to get Finn off of Poe’s mind. Minutes felt like hours, and those long, long hours somehow turned into days, so by the time Poe would receive a mission, he’d be so restless and hungry for adventure that he would nearly kill himself on the mission, making rash, nearly thoughtless decisions. Then he’d victoriously return with his team and without a goddamn _scratch_ , but he would smack himself it his mind for being so stupid, for nearly messing everything up and nearly not being there for Finn.

Poe sat next to Finn, and remembered. He remembered how he had been taken from the village on Jakku to that huge, foreboding, way-too-clean First Order Star Destroyer. He remembered getting interrogated. (It still gave him nightmares.) He remembered that feeling of exhaustion, and the confusion when the stray stormtrooper took him to the little alcove and took off his helmet and told him that he was saving him. Why him? He was a pilot, of course. He remembered his disbelief when the renegade stormtrooper said a _number_ when he had asked him for a name. It was merely shocking then; now, it felt like a stab in the gut every time he thought about it.

He still could not _believe_ that Finn had spent more than twenty years just training to be a ruthless killer. It was terrifying to think that there were people out there who, just like Finn, had been kidnapped from a family they would never know, and had been conditioned to think that heartless letters and numbers were normal and that an army was only ever as strong as its weakest link.

It was sickening. It made Poe want to scream and tear his own throat out so blood would escape from his mouth instead of sound.

Maybe that was a bit graphic. But Poe had seen worse, however little he liked to admit it.

He looked down at Finn again. Poe had seen little bits and pieces of life slowly returning to him. It still wasn’t enough.

Poe wondered if anything would ever be enough.

He missed Finn. A lot. He could barely stop thinking about him. The only things that kept him from the ex-stormtrooper’s side were missions, and those were few and far between, now that the First Order was no longer the near empire it had become.

He felt his throat catch when he wondered how long it would be until Finn was okay. He swallowed, suddenly frantic to distract his thoughts from becoming dark.

So, he started talking. He talked about tons of things: the weather outside (it was almost ironically sunny), his favorite color (he didn’t have one, and was explaining why), the humidity and the beauty of the jungle on his home planet, the stories his mother told him, the stories he shared with his pilots (he might have mentioned a few classified things, but Finn was asleep, so no harm done), the excitement he felt when he flew the TIE fighter.

At some point, he found himself talking about Finn.

“You’re amazing, buddy,” he told the man on the bed. “Just purely incredible. I mean, you’re just… God, where do I begin, y’know? You were just… so on fire, all the time. Right from when we first met. You didn’t know what you were doing, but hell, you knew why. I love you so much,” he said, without really realizing that he’d said it.

When he did, he stiffened. Something imaginary gripped his heart, yanked it out, crushed it in front of him, and shoved it back in through the hole it had made. Poe felt the water fall off his cheek before he really registered he was crying.

He weakly shifted the chair he sat in closer to the bed, and grabbed Finn’s hand as if it was the only thing keeping him alive, and it honestly was. Before he could stop himself, he was sobbing into the bed, his forehead resting on the back of Finn’s hand, begging and pleading desperately with what suddenly felt like the only ounce of energy he had left.

“Finn, I- Please, I feel so pathetic, but I don’t know if I can go on without knowing you’re okay, so please, just… wake up. Wake up. _Please_ . I want to see- I need to see _you_ , Finn, please,” he shakily whispered, repeating the plea until it became a mantra, until it made the rescued pilot drift off in an anxious, restless limbo between asleep and awake.

  
He didn’t notice the tears dripping down Finn’s cheeks, or the tighten of Finn’s grip on his hand.


End file.
